


Soon

by pollitt



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post Reichenbach, Reichenbach Falls, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/pseuds/pollitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cigarettes are the first clue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soon

**Author's Note:**

> A post-The Reichenbach Fall ficlet, because the muses wouldn't let me sleep until something was fixed.

The cigarettes are the first clue. To be precise, it’s the reappearance of the cigarettes.

Harry and Clara had been kind, had almost begged him to stay longer--they have the space, it was still too soon, did he really think that if he went back to the flat everything would be as it was. That last one was from Harry, who was trying to be rational, yet kind, but her words cut like only a loved one can.

John had thanked them, had picked up his bags, and returned back to 221B.

Maybe it was too soon. The flat looked foreign to John as he stepped inside, the empty space where Sherlock should have been felt infinite. John fell heavily against the door frame, gasping for a breath that didn’t want to come.

When his breathing finally evened out, and his heart beat softer in his ears, John moved slowly around the room, touching various items that Mrs. Hudson hadn’t moved from where they’d last been left. At the mantle, his fingers slid over frontal bone of the skull, feeling the seam of the coronal suture where... John tamped down that thought, curling his fingers around the bones and lifting it into his hands.

Revealing the pack of cigarettes underneath.

A perfect storm of emotion hit John all at once, almost knocking him off his feet. _It’s not what it looks like_ , he thought. _They have to be-- Mrs. Hudson couldn’t bring herself to toss them_ , he reasoned. _You’re just projecting._ _It could have been Moriarty, somehow. Before Bart’s._.

But as he set the skull back down onto the mantle and picked up the cigarettes, he knew. It felt heavy, like a brand new pack, but the seal had been broken, the plastic wrapping removed.

John opened the pack.

The cigarettes were all there, apparently untouched, and folded up between two was a slip of paper. John prayed, he wished for a miracle. Biting the inside of his lip, he opened the slip of paper and read what appeared to be a receipt for the cigarettes, purchased the day before in Florence. At the bottom, beneath the printed thank you for the purchase, were five letters.

 _Soon.  
-S_


End file.
